secrets

Phillip Seymour Hoffman died from a heroin overdose.
He was found dead with a hypodermic needle in his arm.

It's hard to put an end on this sad story. It may have been suicide or an accidental overdose or a heart attack.The autopsy is not yet complete.

It was death and it was sudden and uncalled for. I have to say that every time you put a needle full of heroin in your arm you are playing hypodermic roulette. And you are not just playing with one bullet when you push that plunger, your odds are possibly  more like two or three to that one blast.

He left behind a wife and three children, a bucket full of fantastic movies, limousines of friends, truck loads of fans and unfulfilled roles that will never grace our screens.

Like thousands the world over, I was shocked to hear that he had died of a heroin overdose but somehow I could not picture him falling off a luxury yacht and drowning or having a car accident in a Porsche. A simple and quick death from a heart attack or brain aneurysm seemed somehow mediocre for the man who played Truman Capote so sensitively and brilliantly.

Phillip always played characters who were a bit on the creepy and villainous side.

In the latest Hunger Games movie, he played Plutarch Heavensbee and whilst this is a really cool, name his character is menacing and untrustworthy. He is the leader of the Rebellion and head Gamemaker of the Hunger Games. His is in excellent company in this movie with the likes of Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland,  his fellow Dark lords.

As Plutarch his motives are eerie and uncertain, he plays a man who is generally unpleasant, who casts a bad smell in the room.

But in real life, Phillip was  a sensitive and brilliant person. Quirky, intelligent, a bit scruffy with a comic hint of darkness about him, obvious black humour,  a ready grin but like his fictional characters, a shadow did drift lightly beside him, hovering at red carpet photo shoots, crouching in the background on television interviews.

Phillip was able to play tortured and complex characters because he had a secret pocket of torment and a spiteful demon called addiction who must have constantly threatened to overtake him or expose some bad side of Phillip that he didn't want the world to see - he let us see this bad side only as fictional person in a made up world called Movies.

Perhaps he purposely chose bad guy roles so he could let that demon out and then put it back into the Pandora's box where it belonged albeit, the box with a shaky lock. He may have wanted to reveal his dark side to the world and hope that we still loved him. We did. A public and dramatic cry for help? Look at me, I'm evil please help.

Conjecture much.

What we know is the demon got out and Phil played roulette with the needle.

He lost and so did we. But our lives go on as his stopped.

As much as he never sees another day break, we never get to see him play another great role. His wife and family have kissed him goodbye for the final time.

Those roles where he is a little bit creepy and as we watch him up on the big movie screen we start to feel a little bit uncomfortable. This is  because what we see up there, those little secret sides of Phillip sneaking out, sometimes we see ourselves, those secrets we that we try so hard to hide and we wish to always be hidden.

So we have to say a big thank you to the great man for being brave enough to parade all his dirty laundry in public for so long. For making us sqeamish for a couple of hours and grateful that our secrets were safe if only for another night or the duration of a Phillip Seymour Hoffman movie.

R.I.P   Dude xxx